What goes on in your head…..

Our friends who had children prior to us speak convincingly and knowingly of “the second child”.  Part cliche, part experiential, they explain that their second child is, well, different.  This is conveyed by descriptions such as crazy and energetic but my favourite is “mad as a cut snake.”

Peta really tests this second child thing.

Last night she danced like mad to the first two tracks of the FooFighters’ The Colour and the Shape.  The songs are the slow Doll followed by the rambunctious Monkey Wrench.  At this shifting moment of vibratory sensation, Peta arcs up in a wonderful display of thrashing and jumping.  She is smiling with pure adrenalin and says out loud with attitude :  “Funken”.  Err, what was that Peta?  She tells me it is language.  She learnt it herself apparently.  Not sure what to make of that.

She tells me many times over the course of a week: “I so excited!”  Especially for haircuts and staying at nonna’s house.

She wakes up during the night with acute altertness and makes claims or strident requests for water, stories or finger-pointing.  I am blamed for not reading enough to her or for not letting her have her stash of part bag lollies.  At three in the morning.  We respond with “Okay” which cues her up for automatic head-hitting -pillow to resume her slumber again.  It’s truly Pavlovian.

She lies down in the middle of the Vic Market deli and screams for a carrot or apricot slice, refusing to budge.

She has a night terror that lasts for close  to an hour and is unable to recognise us.  She hides behind a laundry basket and I fear what her young mind must be seeing to react with such anguish.  We try to cuddle her and keep her warm until this fear subsides.

She pinches the skin webbing between forefinger and thumb of anyone that she loves and trusts including her carers and grandparents and aunts.  It is her comforter and she refuses to give it up. When asked by her babbo why she pinches like this she responds with such obviousness: “building a city”.  There is no rejoinder to that.  She is urban planning and she cannot stop it.

Before turning three she made the following claim: “When I am 8, after 7, I won’t be naughty anymore.”  Something to aspire to. I’ll remind her when next we visit the market and I find her sprawled in front of the organics section.

At her creche, a carer read the story of  Snow White to her.  Those main characters abide by fairytale stereotype and live happily ever after and kiss.  Peta says: “Just like my mum and dad.  My dad fell in love with my mum, they kissed this morning.”  (Fairytales should be deconstructed and reappropriated for modern day relationships with  added some tension, argumentative discourse and slamming of doors. )

I love my possum and she loves me.   She tells me every day.

She's laughing at this one

Still laughing

Show offs

1.  New haircuts for little girl, big girl and very very big girl (but no need to show off about that last one).  Little girl about to turn three, makes her way to the hair salon with handbag, sunnies and hat for this special milestone.  She squeals:  “Mamma, I so excited!”  Rat’s tales from babyhood are finally cut off.  Big girl loves the whole process just like her little sister.  She now looks like a child of the 30s with her new bob.  Very cute.  She celebrated by making pretend ’stew’ all afternoon.

It's a fine bob, Ginger

Let go of me

Ingredients for stew

2.  Little girl turns big girl 3 on Anzac Day and smiles all day.

3.  I bake my first real birthday cake for little girl turning big girl 3.   It’s a lion cake.  Both little girls pretend to be scared of the lion.  It’s the best reaction I could have had.

My first real birthday cake

Giggles, not tears, this time

More birthday afternoon tea treats

Blowing out number three

They are actually scared of lions.  Once, at the zoo, we were watching the lion pride.  The lions were sort of lolling about when a zoo official made a public announcement on the PA system.  One of the males stood up with arched back and fanned mane, and roared a ginormous roar.  RAAAAAAAAAAAA!  Impressive.

I commented out loud on the thrill of it all.   Problem was there was no one there beside me to respond to my harmless banter.  The two little girls who had been beside me were about 500m away crying effusively and screaming about lions coming to eat them up, refusing to go anywhere near the lion enclosure.  It took about 20 minutes to calm them down.

They don’t like lions.  Who would have thought it?

Cute things they say #5

Ginger, 4 years, 6 months old:

Ginger: Yuk.  (About her sister.)

Me:  Stop saying that to her.  It upsets her because she thinks you are calling her yuk.

Ginger: It’s only an expression mum.  It actually means “Yum, nice”.

Nice try!!

Ginger  when seeing the water sprinklers across the road : Why are there water sprouts on the oval?

Ginger playing with Peta in the shower: This drink is poison. It kills people who drink it.  It’s for people who want to be dead.  If other people say they are ugly or yucky then they can drink the poison and be dead.

Ginger: Mummy, I just did a burp and it tasted like salad.  I think I eat too much salad.

Peta, 2 years, 10 Months:

Peta: I like babbo.  He is nicer than crocodiles.  Crocodiles bite with their sharp teeth.

Ginger, 4 years, 7 months old:

Mum, look, I’m painting just like Jackson Pollock.

Ginger was playing at the local playground with her cousins.  The big slide is a complicated bit of machinery with climbing frames, portholes and viewing platforms, lots of steps.  She was instructing all the two-year olds on how to navigate this ‘rocket ship’ but got sidetracked  and commented as follows:  I’ve got to go on the swing now.  I’ve just paused the rocketship and I’ll be back later.

Peta, 2 years, 11 Months:

Peta, at three o’clock in the morning with eyes wide open: If the Beatles have a song called daddy, daddy, daddy then I could sing daddy, daddy, daddy but the Beatles don’t have a song called daddy, daddy, daddy, so I can’t sing daddy, daddy, daddy.

I’m glad that’s all sorted.  Can it wait until the morning next time?

Captain Beefheart was playing on the stereo.   Peta was very excited and shouted out of the blue:  He’s just like Captain Feathersword.  Is he a pirate?

Oh, he’s definitely a pirate, darling.

The girls also heard The Slits on the radio this morning.  Their punk reggae version of Marvin Gaye’s”I Heard it on the Grapevine” (Bassline according to the lovely Slits) really got their attention.  Peta cried when I turned off the stereo and got us out of the car.  She implored me to pause the song for when she returned.

The rock connoisseur

Me:  “This has great rhythm, don’t you think?”

Peta: “I think the Beatles’ rhythm is gooder.”  Smarty pants two year old.

Check for yourself.  I Admit My Faults by Eddy Current Suppression Ring.  I must buy their albums; it’s been years since I (an old lady) have bought a CD, let alone one that takes me back 20 years.  Lovely stuff.

I’ll add this number too, purely for gratuitous pleasure.

Big smiles

Perfect days are those where we have big smiles.  Yesterday, Peta and Ginger woke up late (8.30am).  Some smiles right there from babbo and mamma.  After breakfast Peta and Ginger ink stamped just about everything in sight and Peta drew her first figurative image.  It was a black texta picture of babbo.  I’ll have to photograph it. Then we spent the morning at the Children’s Garden at the Botanic Gardens.  We picked up R who took her place in the backseat of the car between Ginger the bunny rabbit and Peta the possum.  There were lots of giggles and Peta pretended that R was her mum.

The Children’s Garden has finally grown into a dense rainforest, market garden, lush lavender field,  and waterway sanctuary.  The water features have finally been activated following approval by the water authority and it is enticing to little feet as well as captivating big folk.  There is a living bamboo house, dense bamboo forest, light and shade, bumps and flats, rocks and grass,  and texture and colour.

Dirty and smiley monkeys

Ginger the talker (it never stops)

Ginger the runner

Peta the eater

Peta the smiler

Our stomachs rumbled so off we went in search of food as peaches, nectarines and strawberries didn’t do the job.  We found a solitary place open in Smith Street and enjoyed Japanese noodles, gyoza, tempura and beer (ahem, me only). R was dropped off at home and we resumed the search for wine barrels as tree pots.  Mission accomplished, we spent the rest of the day sorting out the vegie garden and edible pot plants.  Have I mentioned that we also have two bantam silkies named Nellie and Ivy?  Don’t you love the way chooks have old lady names.  I wanted to name them Patti and Debbie but was vetoed by the dirty monkeys. J did most of the hard work and was rewarded by children sticking out their bottoms to him.  They were paid back by having some water dumped on them.  Smiley faces were aghast at the nerve of him. And guess who ate all their dinner of roast lamb and three veg.  Ginger and Peta, that’s who.  More smiles.

Cute things they say #4

Peta, 2 and a half years old:

This one tastes like tomatoes.  This one tastes like strawberries.  (Referring to breastfeeding flavours.  )

I have nappy ache.  (Trying to get out of eating dinner.)

Peta, 2 years and 8 months:

Have you been in the fridge?  (Questions J after he has cycled home from the gym.)

Ginger, 4 years and 3 months:

After not eating a Thai green curry one night for dinner, ginger made it perfectly clear what she wanted the following night:  “I don’t want Japanese or Chinese food.  I want Orstralyan food that tastes yummy!!!!!”

One evening out of the blue, Ginger phoned babbo on his mobile phone.  He happened to be in the next room when he answered it.  I hadn’t been paying attention.  She normally only phones when he is at work and we have left his number written in large numerals next to the landline phone.  This time the piece of paper with his number wasn’t near the phone.  She had remembered the whole number and dialed it!!

The young inventor

J—- and Peta spent time together this morning while Ginger and I went to town to watch Wall-E.  They went to watch  the swans building their nest up at the local wetland and then mucked about at the playground.

J—- hurt his finger at some point and Peta pretended to care for him and apply a bandaid.   J—- asked what character was on the band-aid knowing how much Peta and Ginger both covet The Simpsons or Wiggles on their bandaids.  Never mind that they don’t actually know who the characters are.

Peta thought intently for a while and squeaked:  “Bob Dylan”.

We should contact Johnson & Johnson.  Who would have thought – the rock’n'roll series of bandaids for adults!!

What we do

I’m here to report that I, yes, little old I, can make some things. Admittedly it’s not the fast-paced juggernaut of knitting (I’m looking at you Kelley Deal) or the cool crafty salt-of-the-earth retro sewing gig that a lot of mums have going on. I need to find a tutor who will will teach me knitting and sewing.

Mum has been whipping up some outfits for Ginger. There is one cord pants and vest number that makes her look like a dancer in the video for Moskau, Moskau by Genghis Khan.  Not that I know what that video looks like.  Oh heck, of course, I do.  I just YouTubed- not very handsome men.  Too much shiny fabric and fluffy hair. Check out the translation. I just imagine Ginger squatting and jumping with Ruski verve every time she wears it. It has a certain ethnic flair to it.

I shouldn’t josh like that. Really, mum is a master of thread and fabric. If only I could make her sit down long enough to teach me how to sew with flair. My ideas and her technical expertise would make a great combination. I’m so keen to make a garden dress for Ginger with foliage and buds. I’d like to make a more demented version too with toadstools and bugs and delicate moss.

So what have our fingers racked up this winter gone?

I have made short crust pastry, puff pastry, pies, chocolate cakes (hard as rock though), lemon delicious pudding, pizzas from scratch including dough.  Ginger and Peta have helped with kneading and mixing.  Of course, they have also tasted.

I have created a craft box for Ginger’s birthday full of lovingly cut our pictures from mags and cards, sparkles, ribbons, buttons, transfers and stickers from gorgeous friends, curios, gluesticks, craft idea books, cookbook recipes for children.

I have helped mum establish our vegetable garden with lots of good food for our kitchen table.  We never buy lettuce or silverbeet or peas from the market anymore.  I have weeded and fed scraps to our worms in their clever little farm.  I have composted and trudged out with bucket loads of water form our rinses to feed seedlings and trees in pots.

J—- has made a small water tank from a derelict wheelie bin to hydrate the soil around the perimeter of the house.  He has set up a chicken coop, fenced of the vegie patch and allowed for future chooks to free range throughout the rest of the backyard.  He has set up the girls’ room with sea creatures hanging from teh ceiling and all their momentoes from our trip to Japan.  It’s only taken a year but that’s what winter is for: catching up with the things we must do.

Now we can sit under the neighbour’s palm tree which straddles our backyard and watch all the spring growth.

Cute things they say #3

Ginger, nearly 4, as retold by babbo

I have remembered the fairy name she came up with yesterday: Fairy Colossalus.

I thought it was a great fairy name. I was imagining a childrens’ book about a little girl who dreams of being a fairy and magically wakes up in fairy land, only to find that compared to the fairies there, she is big, clumsy and a walking disaster.

Ginger, 4 years and 1 month

We talked about different types of bridges and what they are used for: cars, buses, trains, people, bicycles. The footbridge next to our home is being altered to suit cyclists who will no longer need to cross the road once it is finished. Ginger talked about it’s current users: “It’s one for pedestrians, and people and humans…and bumble bees.”

Peta, 2 years and 2 months

The girls often pine for their father when he is working. They ask why he can’t stay at home. I explain that he works so he can bring home the bacon. They love the sound of that : yum, bacon. The other day, I asked Peta where her father was. She explained that he was at work. Then she claimed: “He brings home the pizza!” Let’s hope it’s family size.

After reaching two years of age, J—- and I decided to try and encourage Peta to sleep for longer stretches at night. We call it the ‘tough love’ approach. No lengthy reading or procrastianting. Ginger objected a bit but then zzzz’d off straight away. Now Peta…..she cried and screamed as expected. However, she gave up the fight after a good 20 minutes. Incredible outcome. The second night the crying lasted for about 3 minutes. Peta stirred when Ginger screamed for water, then she did a very good impersonation of a two year old in deep slumber. Kerplonk, just like that. I could have wept but was too frightened of waking her up. Instead I creeped down the stairs with J—- and then did a flying leap into his arms and jigged around the living room a la a drunken cheer leader on prom night. At 11.45pm, like I knew she would, she screamed and cried and got out of her cot (no side). We put her back in. I tried to distract her with fuzzy thoughts: Are you going to dream about Ginger’s birthday? Should we make her a pink cake? Do you want to hold Leo your lion? This stopped the tears a few times, enough to induce sleep again.

In the first week of our tough love tactics, this is what Peta shouts at James when she then wakes up in the middle of the night, wanting his attention: “I sick!! Give me medicine! Now!!” She cracks me up. It’s not true, the part about her being ill and requiring pain killers. She just says it to get him to go to her room. Very imaginative, our Peta. Or sometimes she screams: “Ididda wee, get me new nappy now!!!!” Or “Give me some pepperment tea!” She obviously has a fine palette and needs some help digesting her dinner.

I love the way her verbal range has accelerated over a period of a few short months. No longer indecipherable babytalk but full sentences although Ginger and I still occasionally have to translate for babbo and grandmothers.

Peta, 2 years and 4 months

Learning how to spell (or just copying Ginger): “What does boat start with?”

Winter at our place

Cold breath and frozen toes first thing in the morning. Fragrant stews and mash for tea and quibbled eggs for breakfast. Cuddly doonas and languid soft toys in bedroom mounds. Splattered gum boots lounging at the back and front door. Wispy pea shoots and hopeful broccoli leaves stretching to the winter sun. Wet and leafy walks at the rolling scrubby parkland. Guileless mushrooms poking out among the orange and teak coloured carpet of leaf debris. Lots of indoor play with wooden blocks underfoot, newborn dolls and vintage prams, spinning tops, teasets, puzzles, and dressups as genies and astronauts. Watercolour paint brushes held with fierce determination and secret inner minds. Learning letters with gorgeous back-to-front intensity and stubby pencils, courtesy of dad’s early morning tutorials. Sunday swimming lessons, anxious and tricky, and gleeful too. Riding the bike through fog and damp hills on a bicycle built for three, to Italian classes.

Don’t worry, we don’t pick those mushrooms up at the parkland even though nonna has given us tips to recognising the good ones. A sprightly dog-walker told us the trick is to fry one up with onion and if it goes black, the mushies are to be avoided. I’m not so game to take that as the foolproof method.

Winter in our new ‘old’ house this year has been illuminating in lots of ways. The bones of the house are slowly being restored with some thought to crumbly gutters and drought ridden soils but the winter chill has introduced us to frigid drafts that push their way in from weary cracks and unsealed window frames. The days, and especially the mornings and evenings, test our endurance for the solitary 70s gas-heater in the living room and exhaustless kitchen range. All our large appliances rattle and have lost elasticity in their hinges so that the oven and grill do not seal properly. The worst of it occurs most evenings when the kitchen windows swelter from a soup of cooking condensation. Ginger decides it’s a great canvas for her smiley people faces.

This past couple of months, the garden has been ripped mostly of its defective stormwater drains and invasive plants. It’s given an excuse to stake out a vegie plot that nonna has tackled with muddy determination. Our sophisticated recycled system (me collecting rinse water in a square bucket) has provided litres of the good stuff for all the thirtsy seedlings. We have silverbeet, tiny lettuce buds, cauliflower, peas, leeks, spinach, peppers, parsley, oregano, coriander. J—- has set up a stubborn timber compost bin for all our scraps and vacuum dust. The parkland has not escaped our green thumbs (insert *snorts* here.) We have spent a Sunday planting native trees and grass with lots of community folk.

Today, after breakfast, Ginger and Peta sat playing quietly near our front bay window. I heard stifled giggles. I eventually came upon a bloated funny looking Peta. She was wearing her striped one piece bonds suit pyjamas. With Ginger’s help she had undone her press studs and both girls were stuffing her full of Brio building wooden blocks. Laughing uproariously they had managed to squeeze in about 100 pieces. She looked like an overweight midget sumo wrestler. Couldn’t stand due to all the bulking up in her middle body area. They weren’t able to do up her press studs again. Lucky. She had poo’d in her nappy but was too happy with the stuffing exercise to notice that.

There’s also lots of singing this winter as Ginger’s squeaky vocal cords hit new hi’s and lo’s. Ginger has taken to belting out “48 crash Like a lightning flash like a silk sash bash”. I don’t remember lyrics at all, so she takes after J—-. Forgive me Suzi Q, if I have those lyrics wrong. Peta sings “I’m a little teapot” in a sotte voce ramble a la Marilyn Monroe that leaves us all giggling. Other songs are sung with their own unique arrangements: I, I, I, I’m not your stepping stone; Daydream believer……; She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ginger has also claimed that she has to sing the part of all the Beatles wives, whatever that means, because she likes backing vocals. Oh Ging, it’s really not a man’s world, it isn’t.

The girls argue constantly over who is singing that Beatles song over and over in the car: John Lennon or Poo Maarcardtee. Peta holds her own and is indignantly insistent every time Ginger nominates John as the singer. She also cries out for one song in particular singing out “Nudding gonnachangemywood” over and over again:

Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting through my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Its “Across the Universe” by the Beatles available on the Rarities compilation.

And in case you were wondering, quibbled eggs are merely scrambled eggs in Ginger-speak.